The End of Power

POWER MAY FEEL ABSTRACT, BUT FOR THOSE WHO ARE MOST ATTUNED TO

those who hold power in the future will find their latitude constrained and their effectiveness limited in ways that they probably did not anticipate and that their predecessors did not experience

Assessing the concomitant decline of Europe and rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) bloc

geopolitics, whereby the decline of some nations (particularly the United States) and the rise of others (notably China) is presented as the dominant world-transforming trend of our time.

In particular, this book takes aim at two of the big conventional conversations about power. One is the fixation with the Internet as the explanation for changes in power, especially in politics and business. The other is the obsession with the changing of the guard in

Today, this book argues, what is changing the world has less to do with the competition between megaplayers than with the rise of micropowers and their ability to challenge the megaplayers.

These newly and increasingly relevant “small players” are vastly different from one another, as are the fields they compete in

is a picture of power scattered among an increasing number of newer, smaller players from diverse and unexpected origins, much as we see in chess

Moreover, personal income and wealth are not the only sources of power

Thus, a large, advanced army by itself no longer ensures that a country will achieve its strategic goals